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Monday, 17 July 2017

Tech: The world's first planned drive-thru mall is now a prison — take a look at its history

Intended to serve as a mall, the Helicoide instead turned into a prison and alleged torture chamber, according to former inmates.

Among the small houses on a hill in Caracas, Venezuela, the massive Helicoide looks otherworldly — or, at the very least, out of place.

The spaceship-like building was planned as a drive-thru mall. Instead of walking, shoppers would have been able to drive right into the complex and park in front of the shops they wanted to visit — though the shops wouldn't have drive-thru windows.

Construction started in 1956, but the project was abandoned a few years later because of funding woes.

Over the next few decades, the building transformed into a prison and, according to several former inmates, a torture chamber for political prisoners.

In Caracas, Venezuela, the Helicoide — which translates to "the helix" — stretches 25 acres.

In the early '50s, the architect Jorge Romero Gutierrez designed the structure to be a modern retail destination inspired by the Tower of Babel and Frank Lloyd Wright's proposed planetarium, the Gordon Strong Automobile Objective, Olalquiaga told Business Insider.

At the time, Venezuela's state-owned oil company had made significant profits as a petroleum supplier to World War II allies. The government funneled some of this money into building the Helicoide.

The plan called for 320 stores and two elevators. But instead of walking through the mall, shoppers would be able to drive through on double-lane ramps.

The Helicoide would also include a car showroom, a gas station, a repair shop, a car wash ...

... as well as exhibition halls, a gym, a nursery, a pool, a seven-screen movie theater, and a bowling alley.

But the project was abandoned in 1958, after the Perez Jimenez dictatorship collapsed. The spiraling building was left in concrete, just one year short of completion, leading to a long bankruptcy process.

In 1975, it became government property, still empty (though there were proposals to turn it into an environmental center or a museum). From 1979 to 1982, it was used as a temporary shelter for about 500 families and flood victims, who lived in shipping containers inside the building.

In 1984, a Venezuelan police agency — the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service, or SEBIN — moved in and built a prison for political detainees.

One report by a local nongovernmental organization said there were 145 cases of torture and inhumane treatment, mostly by SEBIN and Bolivian National Guard agents, from January 2014 to June 2016. Other former inmates allege they were given electric shocks or beatings, or were left hanging for hours.

"Helicoide is an incredible paradox, so futuristic and yet so retrograde in its use," Olalquiaga said. Today, there are at least 340 prisoners in the Helicoide, including students who protest the government.

"In the 1960s, Venezuela was geared to become a leading Latin American country, but its fast-paced modernization was made at the expense of a vast majority of people living in misery, precisely in the type of slums that surround the building," she added. "Had the modern process been more socially inclusive and the successive governments less corrupt, Venezuela would be in a very different situation. But for many Venezuelans, El Helicoide has become a symbol of torture."